Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker stands as one of Britain's most beloved and highly acclaimed contemporary artists. 

Biography of Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker was born in 1956 in Cheshire, England. She attended Gloucestershire College of Art & Design and Wolverhampton Polytechnic. She received her MA in Fine Art from the University of Reading in 1982.  

In 1997, Parker was a finalist for the Turner Prize, alongside Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, and Gillian Wearing (who won the prize).

In 2016, Parker received the Artist of the Year Apollo Award. She was chosen as the official Election Artist for the 2017 general election in the United Kingdom. In the 2022 Birthday Honours, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her contributions to the arts.

Cornelia Parker's first solo museum exhibition took place at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 2000. In 2019, she was featured in a comprehensive survey exhibition at MCA Sydney. Recently, a significant retrospective of her work debuted at Tate Britain in May 2022.

Currently, the artist lives and works in London.

Cornelia Parker's Art Style

Parker's art explores themes of destruction, resurrection, and reconfiguration. Emphasizing the significance of process, she often employs seemingly violent methods like shooting, exploding, squashing, cutting, and burning to transform objects. In doing so, she not only physically alters the object but also actively engages as a participant in shaping its narrativ

Fueled by an insatiable curiosity, she reshapes everyday objects to provoke reflections on our connection to the world. Through transformation, playful reinterpretation, and narrative, Parker confronts pressing issues of our era, from violence and ecology to human rights.